First absentees counted in Alaska: Joe Miller gains 900 votes

posted at 7:23 pm on November 9, 2010 by Allahpundit

The Division of Elections has put out a big statewide update, which includes the districts reported already as well as new ones (will take a little time to figure out just which ones.)

The bottom line in the update is that the state is now reporting that it’s counted over 8,000 absentee and early votes today.

The write-ins lead Joe Miller by 12,525 votes. That represents a 914 vote gain for Miller in today’s count of absentee and early votes. The write-in lead was 13,439 the start of the day.

According to Miller in the clip below, there are roughly 37,000 absentees outstanding. If he continues to gain at this pace, he’ll end up somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 votes down at the end of the absentee counting, which means he’ll have to make up the difference in write-ins — either via write-in votes for him or by disqualifying ambiguous ballots that would otherwise go to Murkowski. He says in the clip that the disqualification rate in 1998, the last time someone in Alaska mounted a write-in bid, was eight percent. If that held true for Murkowski’s pool, it would knock 6,500 or so votes off her lead, which … still leaves him a few thousand votes short. And that’s assuming, of course, that Murky’s high-profile voter education campaign on how to properly write in a candidate’s name did nothing to improve the error rate from 1998.

Realistically, I think, he’s got to gain at a greater rate among the rest of the absentees. And he might: His strongholds are Fairbanks and the Mat-Su Valley, and it’s unclear from the ADN report quoted above whether they’ve been counted yet. (They hadn’t as of a few hours ago.) Also, Conservatives4Palin notes that he’s doing about eight percent better among absentees than he did on election day whereas the write-ins are doing about eight percent worse. That makes sense: Miller faded near the end of the campaign, so ballots mailed earlier on should break more heavily for him than ballots cast on election day. Fingers crossed.

Never forget, the GOP Apparatchiks propelled Murkowski to victory. Had she not kept her Energy Committee seniority or not been able to convincingly claim to Alaska voters that the GOP Establishment wanted her to win, Lisa Murkowski would have gotten clobbered. The most any of the GOP Senate leadership did for Miller was the “I support the party nominee” non-endorsement they would have given even if it had been a child molester who had successfully primaried Murkowski. The icing on the cake was their decision to attack McAdams instead of Murkowski which played right into Lisa’s campaign strategy of picking up Democratic votes. This loss lays at the feet of McConnell, Hatch, Thune, KBH, and Cornyn all of whom came to Murk’s aid. Shame on them and shame on us if we forget about this betrayal of the will of the GOP voters.

Is it just me, or does “Write-In” actually imply “Lisa Murkowski”? Because, merely “Write-In” only indicates that whomever cast that ballot did not select any of the balloted candidates and one cannot assume that just because one is a write in vote, that it is a vote for Lisa Murkowski.

Is it just me, or does “Write-In” actually imply “Lisa Murkowski”? Because, merely “Write-In” only indicates that whomever cast that ballot did not select any of the balloted candidates and one cannot assume that just because one is a write in vote, that it is a vote for Lisa Murkowski.

ted c on November 9, 2010 at 7:39 PM

I looked at write-in rates in 2006 and 2008 Alaska elections for Senate and House, and they ran between 0.10% and 0.36%. That tells me that the write-ins correctly done for other-than-Lisa will probably be similar this year.

The disqualification rate is not entirely an error rate, some of those will be spoiled on purpose, like when someone writes in ‘none of the above’ or ‘Howard Stern’.

Not as OT as it would seem:
Michele Bachman on OReilly…someone has given her media coaching (IMO). I’ve always loved her, but she used to come off as very shrill. This time, poised, reasoned, focused, sotto voce and AWESOME!
And (I’m slightly tearful), totally toned down Miny-souda accent. (Meaning, is she becoming phoney?) Gosh, such a mixed message. Still she remains strong to her principles!
Am I bi-polar if I still have a girl crush on her???

yeap us vs them….too bad the GOP elite are the them this time around…:)

unseen on November 9, 2010 at 8:21 PM

Not Bad at all. This is a fight that must be embraced and won if we are to reclaim our country and its ideals of freedom and liberty unencumbered by big government!

the RINO’s, the Progressive and limp wristed Repubs opened the door just far enough to let the full blown Communist/Marxists in and they must be driven from the halls of power in order to effect real reform.

Gosh, such a mixed message. Still she remains strong to her principles!
Am I bi-polar if I still have a girl crush on her???

Chewy the Lab on November 9, 2010 at 8:24 PM

Did you catch the false premise the bogus question OReally tried to bully her into three times. Is your number one priority to work with or defeat OBlahBlah?

Michelle,
“My number one priority is to do the best job I can for the American people!”

OReally, “oh common thats’ not what I asked Blablablabla.”
Oh and I won’t pick on you I know your sick tonight I(and not up to taking on me the genius tonight)

I wish someone would tell OReaklly to Ef himself, I can’t stand that pompous gasbag. he creeps me out always havin on the good lookin women and tryin to play Mr. Superior.
In high school we had a term for jerks like him and suffice it to say they hung out around the (girls) bicycles!

Now hes’ on the full body scan thing with the good lookin girls. I can imagine that creep hangin out behind the curtain peepin at women and little boys and even guys the creeper and don’t worry ya old fool no-one wants to pat your old tired ass down. Jerkoff!

Sorry,
I just can’t stand OReally hes’ a condescending jerk who likes to play tough guy and wee wees all over himself when faced with a good interview. Hes’ all about tryin to score an ObalhaBlah interview then kisses OblahBlah butt when he gets one!

What really pissed me off on OReally was when he was whining about no-one told him, the smart guy, about the market crash!

He’s so smart he should have figured it out and a lot of folks with a lot less than him were hurt by it, some of us weren’t!
Bret Baier is a much better interviewer and host!

I agree that assuming the 1998 write-in disqualification rate of 8% will apply in 2010 is probably a mistake. Because this write-in campaign was more highly publicized, that changes the dynamic, and the error rate was probably less.

On the other hand, consider this: As far as I know, there was only 1 write-in candidate in 1994. This year there were more than 150. That also changes the dynamic.

Each of those write-in candidates probably got his or her own vote. And probably a few more from immediate family. And perhaps a few more from work or neighbors. Some may have received dozens more by telling friends at the local pub, bowling league, church group or quilting club, or by calling in to a radio station. (If I had qualified as a certified write-in candidate for the ballot in a Senate election, I know I would certainly tell scores of people.) It’s impossible to know what the average number of votes will be for each of these write-ins, but it is not unreasonable to assume 10, 20 or even 30. That would translate into 1,500, 3,000 or even 4,500 of the write-in votes being for someone other than Murkowski.

These votes for other write-in candidates might be “jokes,” but they may surprise the Princess and the pundits.

FYI:
The law (In Alaska) says “A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided.” There are other requirements, but this one is the most important.

Additionally, the law appears to leave no room for discretion, “The rules set out in this section are mandatory and there are no exceptions to them. A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules.” I assume the law was written this way to make it difficult for write in efforts to succeed in order to discourage sore loser candidacies.

Never forget, the GOP Apparatchiks propelled Murkowski to victory. Had she not kept her Energy Committee seniority or not been able to convincingly claim to Alaska voters that the GOP Establishment wanted her to win, Lisa Murkowski would have gotten clobbered.
Raisedbywolves on November 9, 2010 at 7:38 PM

The law (In Alaska) says “A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate .” There are other requirements, but this one is the most important.and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided

Additionally, the law appears to leave no room for discretion, “The rules set out in this section are mandatory and there are no exceptions to them. A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules.” I assume the law was written this way to make it difficult for write in efforts to succeed in order to discourage sore loser candidacies.

H/T Clubforgrowth

Nelsa on November 9, 2010 at 10:12 PM

“and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided”–That doesn’t seem to require that the last name of the candidate written on the write-in ballot be identical to the name written on the write-in declaration of candidacy.

Ditzy drama queen murkowski still believes in the fairy tale “divine right of kings”, i.e., with her bloodline, she’s ENTITLED to her office! That’s the stupid frickin’ “ruling class” mentality that got the country into the mess it’s in in the first place, since these “public servants” (money-grubbing, power-hungry weasels on the public dole) are so detached from the moon-faced, unwashed masses they purport to represent.

You are right! I totally screwed up that cut and paste:
Here is how the article actually read:

The law says “A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided.” There are other requirements, but this one is the most important.

Additionally, the law appears to leave no room for discretion, “The rules set out in this section are mandatory and there are no exceptions to them. A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules.” I assume the law was written this way to make it difficult for write in efforts to succeed in order to discourage sore loser candidacies.

The law says “A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided

Thanks, Nelsa. I still don’t think the law requires that, in a case where only the last name is written on a write-in ballot, that the last name as written must be identical to the one written in the declaration of candidacy. It’s a closer question in the situation where a write-in ballot contains the first and last name; if the law said that the name as written on the write-in ballot must be identical to that as it appears on the declaration of candidacy, then there wouldn’t be any question.

You know, if you can’t just spell the name from the list that is AVAILABLE to you when you vote then the question of ‘intent’ becomes one of your ability to actually just spell. And if you screw it up you can ask for a new ballot and get the one you were filling in destroyed because of your lack of ability to read and write.

So why would ‘intent’ matter at all when you can get a new ballot and do it right? The last name, as it appears on the declaration is available. The list of all write-in names is available. New ballots are available if you screw it up. So what is up with ‘intent’ instead of just doing your duty as a citizen to get the name, as it is spelled right before your very eyes, RIGHT? If you don’t care enough to follow the law and actually bother to fill in the name, as required, then you are not taking proper care of your civil right and exercising it in accordance with he laws set up by your fellow citizens through your representative government. That is the clear intent of the law: for you to dot the i’s and cross the t’s to show that you understand the law and follow through with it. If your ‘intent’ is to write a name in, you only need to get the last name RIGHT to demonstrate your ‘intent’ to follow the law. Is that so very, very, very hard to do with the name sitting right in front of your face?

Miller needs a miracle but i will cross my fingers and toes and pray for one. It drives me absolutely batty that people complain about elitist, condescending, typical politicians and then elect one over a good conservative in a conservative state.

Has anyone seen any sort of breakdown of what comprises the ‘write ins’? Far as I know they could be 90% ‘Mickey Mouse’.

rayra on November 10, 2010 at 12:41 AM

It is my understanding that no one has even looked at them. My “Hope” is that many of them say Joe Miller. They would be invalid votes for him, but they would reduce her numbers. Basically a 1/2 vote for him.

Can someone answer me this: How does she have such a seemingly large lead when she was defeated in the primary?

In other words – voters said “no thank you” at the first chance they got but in the second look, they voted for her.

What gives?

RedNewEnglander on November 9, 2010 at 7:31 PM

As I recall reading, the primary had less than 30% turnout, and Miller received something like 21% – can’t remember what Lisa got. So, her supporters encouraged to run a write-in campaign because the voters “didn’t REALLY choose Miller.” You think the Lisa supporters just assumed her primary win was already in the bag? Oh, the other excuse was that she refused to be critical enough of Joe during the primary season. Well, that decision has been made before by other candidates. Remember McCain in 2008?

Has anyone seen any sort of breakdown of what comprises the ‘write ins’? Far as I know they could be 90% ‘Mickey Mouse’.

Given that in non-Presidential election years there are usually only a few hundred write-in votes for Senator in Alaska, it’s hard to imagine more than a few hundred being for someone other than Murkowski.